It's funny that comment Jackie. It reminds me that what seems so normal to one person can be extraordinary to another.

Here in Québec, nearly every park has an outdoor skating rink in the wintertime. Most of them are hockey rinks, but many parks are big enough to have a wide, iced-up ring around the hockey rink so folks can skate when there's a pick-up game on.

Parks too small to have a hockey rink will often have a simple iced-up ring or square.

Yeah, but those are like, built ones, right? Nice and safe--no frigid water below to fall into should the ice give way. Some time after my last post above, I remembered that we at least used to have one of those downtown by the river; but it had to be maintained with artificial cold a good part of the time, that's for sure.

Helen--yes, I read Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, but to me it was just a story, like Lassie Come Home --not about something that actually happened.

Branshea--at first, I thought you were going to put They also tried Finland and froze their bits. Yes, that means what you think it does!

I think the only parts that did not freeze were their bits, if I understand you right. Fingers, noses. toes, eyes,really! Jackie : you are right in this that a good skating season always brings a few fatal casualties.But so does the bathing season at the coast. The hunting season in Italy, where they sometimes take their fellow men for deer or poor little birds.Helen: funny,I always thought that Lassie Come Home really happened. The first serious movie I ever saw.

what seems so normal to one person can be extraordinary to another. For sure--I had part of a game show on TV while I was getting ready to go out. One of the questions was where did people get their first kiss. One of the responses was "at the beach". This is a response that hardly anybody in my part of the world would even think of. We do have places where sandy areas lead to water, but we say we're at the lake, or at the river.

Um--as far as I know, yes. Perhaps coastal dwellers say it differently, but I've always heard, for ex., "We were at the beach when you tried to call us", meaning literally on the sand, or in the water, or at a concession stand--whatever's there in the area. On the beach would be very specific, I think...maybe as in, "Thank goodness we were on the beach when the big shark swam by". I've never heard anyone say in the beach.

No,I meant are you never in the lake? or on it? In the river or on it?Or does the word at cover this too?Maybe you have crocodiles in the rivers?Nay, in the beach , of course not unless you dig a whole so deep you can call yourself in the beach. Sometimes kids will do that . Go so deep you won't see their heads any more.

Yeah, we "go to the beach" (and swim in ocean) and if using past tense, i would say "i was at the beach yesterday" (i might go on and say "the water was cold, (or warm, or rough, or..)--since most often, one goes to the beach to swim.

If i went to a lake to swim, i would say 'We went to lake welsch" (harriman state park) or some other lake. (and most would presume for swimming,--if you went out rowing on the lake or fishing, you'd say that) (and i would presume the same if Jackie or anyone else said "we went to the lake (or to lake such and such)"

no one swims in North(hudson river) in NY metro area. the current is that strong, but there are no safe area's to enter the water (not to mention, its not all that clean--it much cleaner that it was 20 years ago, but...) NY's other 'rivers' aren't rivers (harlem river, east river) but tidal straights (and in the 'east river' the tides cause a current that can 'run' as fast as 20 knots--so its definately not safe to swim in! (these salt water 'rivers' never freeze)

there are some beaches in NYC on Long Island Sound (in the bronx) most of NYC's beaches are ocean beaches --coney island-brooklyn) and Rockaway--queens are the big ones, there are others (really extention of the same barrier islands, just different sections have specific names. (west end of rockaway is 'breezy point', east end is "far rockaway" --but an out of towner would have trouble recognizing these as different 'beaches' (one barrier island, a 10 miles stretch of sandy shore!)

as for rinks, there is at least one ice skating rink per borough, (free or low cost city park rinks) and i know in many parts of US people build out door rinks by just setting up some 2X4's and filling them with water and letting them freeze. In NYC is rarely cold enought to make such a rink worthwhile--though i suspect some upstater's might do it. the netherlands, with its canals and northern climate, is unique in having 'winter/ice' highways for skating.

Pondered at one time how expressing presence on an island is flexible, e.g., "on Barbados", "in Barbados", "at Barbados", in contrast to elsewhere less so [never heard "on Kansas"]. In the case of something like a lake it would seem to depend on whether it is frozen over. If it is, certainly one would hope to be 'on' vice 'in' the lake.

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